European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and the Bioeconomy

Industrial Biotech contributes over €30 billion to the EU economy and around 500 000 jobs, with figures expected to grow to between 900 000-1.5 million jobs with an accompanying economic contribution of up to almost €100 billion by 2030. Those were the key findings of a new EuropaBio report, prepared to highlight the increasing potential of Industrial Biotech to contribute towards Europe’s jobs, growth and competitiveness agenda, which was commissioned and prepared by EuropaBio, published in September 2016.

As such the industrial biotech industry has the potential to become the dominant technology of tomorrow’s chemicals industry, representing a huge future opportunity. Delivering on this opportunity will require significant investment, innovation and value chain development and most importantly new collaborations across the sector. Additionally we are faced with important challenges posed by high energy prices, the impact of the shale gas boom on the development of biobased chemicals markets and the ongoing need for predictable, coherent and supportive policy in the EU.

In order to understand and overcome these challenges and prosper in the industrial biotechnology market, industry experts throughout the vibrant and innovative biobased community come together to one central location every year to discuss the key issues and gain a snapshot of the most significant developments on scale up of commercial biorefineries around the world.

That location is the European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and the Bioeconomy (EFIB), where delegates are provided with an update on the status and outlook of biobased industries. EFIB is proud to foster engagement between policy makers, a broad range of stakeholders connected with the existing biobased value chain and seeks to reach out to, and include, new interlocutors. EFIB 2017 will be returning to The SQUARE in Brussels this October for the 10th anniversary edition.